False safety
by Dreaming of Starry Skies
Summary: She couldn't stop running. She had always known that. So why had she stopped? A darker look at Penny's backstory.


**Set in maybe mid season 3? This ain't a Shenny (despite the chances of getting angry reviews saying it is because I had them interact,) but Amy isn't in it. This obviously contradicts canon but ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)**

Roses were meant to be a symbol of romance, but when Penny opened her door to find a dozen in her apartment, her breath caught in her throat.

It meant he had found her.

She quickly got into the apartment and locked the door, putting it on deadbolt which she had never done before. She shut all the curtains and made sure the windows were locked. She turned off her cellphone and stood in the middle of her apartment, her heart beating wildly in her chest.

The guys, bless them weren't the best at picking up lies. Not just Sheldon, but even Bernadette and Leonard who were perhaps the best adjusted.

So it was easy to not tell them the full truth about why she moved to California.

The guys all thought Penny was short for Penelope. Perhaps when playing Age of Conan, she had attempted to reinforce this. The less that they knew about her name the better.

When she was 17, a year before she had moved, she had caught the attention of a guy, maybe 7 years older than her. He was always careful to not disclose any real information.

Penny had fallen fast for him and for the first few months everything had been perfect. Then his behaviour became creepy. Phone calls every 20 minutes, texts all through the night. She had never worked out how he did it.

Finally, enough was enough and Penny had broken it off with him. Then the true danger started. He would send her just as many messages, but now each had a threatening under tone to it. Penny had lost weight and her friends remarked she had became a shadow of who she truly was.

When she met Kurt, she saw him as her ticket to leaving Omaha. For 6 months after leaving California, she had had no contact with her family, she had gotten a new phone number and email address. She started going by Penny instead of her real name.

When she thought she was safe, she sent a letter to her family. She didn't explain why she had to do it. Only that she was sorry. It was several years before they forgave herand she suspected they still didn't have full trust in her.

The community probably saw her entire family as a failure. A drug dealer for a son, A daughter who was pregnant before she was fully an adult and a teenage runaway.

Penny knew it was necessary. She started to truly fall in love with Kurt when he cheated on her and she moved to her new apartment.

Whilst heartbroken, she was secretly relieved. Now, no one knew anything except what she chose to disclose.

But now he had found her.

Penny rushed to the bathroom before she was sick. She remembered how every time they had had an argument he would show up on her doorstep with 12 roses.

With a shriek of fury she picked up the roses and shredded each one violently, barely feeling the thorn pricks on her hands and upper arms. She wasn't aware how long she was shredding them for, but soon they were in tiny pieces.

She gathered them up and put them in a plastic trash bag. Suddenly feeling all the energy drain out of her, she sat down heavily on the sofa and began to cry.

She had been so careful.

She heard a knock on the door and jumped out of her skin. Luckily, she reconised the distinctive knock as Sheldon's.

"Penny? It's Halo night and you were due to come over 10 minutes ago? Are you available or will you be distrupting my routine?"

Penny didn't want company, but she didn't want to be alone either. She wiped away her tears and composed herself as best she could.

"Sorry Sweetie, I'll be right over," she called, hoping he wouldn't notice the waver in her- who was she kidding? Of course he wouldn't.

Gathering up her courage, she unlocked the door, locking it up as soon as she got outside. She didn't want to know how he got in.

She walked over to the guys apartment and quickly opened the door. It still made her smile to see Howard so genuinely happy with Bernadette. Sure she found him a bit of a creep, and that was hard to get used to, especially with her radar so high, but she cared for all of her nerds and Bernadette was awesome for him.

She flopped down onto the sofa, next to Raj and Sheldon and picked up her controller. She tried to display an air of carelessness but her stomach was twisted into knots and she still felt sick. The boys had gotten her usual order but she could barely do more than pick at it.

Her Halo skills slipped too. Whilst normally, she was good enough to piss Sheldon off, today, even Bernadette, a total newbie who didn't even care was beating her.

After what seemed like both hours and minutes, the night was over and it was Sheldon's bedtime. She said goodnight to everybody and quickly slipped into her own apartment.

* * *

The night was filled with fitful rest. Penny could barely keep her eyes closed for more than a few seconds before they darted around the room again. Finally morning broke and she whipped up the courage to turn on her phone.

Her blood ran cold.

 **You thought you could hide? You've done so well but it was always only a matter of time.**

Penny wasn't sure what to do. She could go to the police but then she'd have to admit things. Things she didn't want to admit. Lying about her full name on legal documents for a start.

Going by Penelope Queen had gone okay for a while, it even felt natural to her to say it. But it wasn't her real name. Aspen was a rare name and the chances of him finding her were much higher if she went by that.

Dying her light brown hair blonde was easy. Changing her complete dress sense wasn't. In Ohama, Penny had favoured dark corset style dresses with long boots. Going from this to strappy t shirts and shorts felt unnatural. But for safety, she didn't care.

She wished she had noticed the warning signs, but she hadn't. She wished she had left him earlier, but she hadn't.

After years without him, Penny had lulled herself into a false sense of security. But she was never safe. How long had he known her address? Her number?

Was she ever safe?

The saying was true. She could run. But she couldn't hide.

 **This is kinda complete? It's not tied up neatly or anything but I'm not going to continue. Do you guys like it? I'm not too sure about the second half of it. For a while I was gonna turn it into Penny/Bernadette but I couldn't work out a way to make that happen without breaking up Howardette which is yeah.. adorable. Please tell me your thoughts on this and add some constructive criticism because we all know I need to improve A LOT.**

 **Being Aspen was a last minute decision. I liked the name and I think it actually fit Penny well. For a while I was thinking of Bridget, but I decided not to ultimately.**


End file.
